Chapter 5

The heavy door of the bar swung shut behind her, and the thumping bass of the music hit her like a physical blow. It was perfect. Loud enough to drown out thought.

Clare made a beeline for the bar, sliding onto a vacant stool.

"Whiskey. Neat," she said to the bartender.

He poured a generous amount into a glass. She downed it in one go, the alcohol burning a fiery path down her throat. It did nothing to numb the ache in her chest.

"Another."

A man in a cheap suit tried to lean in, a practiced line already on his lips. One look from Clare-a cold, dead stare-sent him scurrying away.

She swirled the second whiskey, watching the amber liquid catch the dim, colored lights. She tried to focus on the noise, the press of bodies, anything to keep Egnacio's voice out of her head. Just a sister.

Her phone buzzed on the bar top. A notification from a society blog she followed out of professional necessity. Her thumb swiped it open automatically. The screen lit up with a photo posted not five minutes ago. It was a candid shot, a stolen moment of intimacy.

In the photo, Egnacio was laughing in a booth at a sleek, upscale restaurant downtown. And snuggled up against his side, her head on his shoulder, was her cousin, Carli Carroll.

Carli was feeding him a maraschino cherry from her drink, her fingers lingering near his lips. The gesture was intimate, proprietary. Egnacio was looking down at her with an expression of fond indulgence that he had never, not once, shown Clare. It was not the look a man gives his sister.

The glass in Clare's hand trembled. The whiskey sloshed over the rim, cold and sticky on her fingers.

Her stomach twisted. So this was it. It wasn't that he didn't want a relationship. It was that he didn't want one with her. He wanted the sweet, simpering, harmless version of a Carroll woman. Not the one who fought back.

Rage, pure and hot, surged through her, eclipsing the pain. Her first instinct was to march over there, to throw her drink in their faces, to expose them for the liars they were.

But her mind, honed by years of corporate warfare, took over. A public scene would only make her look hysterical. It would be the talk of the town by morning. Clare Carroll, spurned and pathetic. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction.

The last of Clare's broken heart turned to stone, then to dust. A cold, murderous calm settled over her. They thought she was a liability? Fine. She would become their worst nightmare.

She placed a twenty on the bar, slid off the stool, and walked out into the night. The parking lot was mostly empty, lit by a single, flickering streetlamp. The cool air felt good on her burning skin. It cleared her head.

She pulled out her phone to call for a car. The screen's bright light illuminated her face, and for a second, she saw her own reflection. Her expression was one she didn't recognize. It was cold, hard, and utterly ruthless.

Egnacio Hayes. Carli Carroll. They had humiliated her. They had underestimated her.

They would both pay for that mistake.